Where the Wild Things Are: Poetry

*I was rooting around in the garage and found a book of poems in a box. They were written by me in the mid to late nineties, when I was working the graveyard shift in a hospital, with lots of time to kill! It's interesting trying to recall the inspiration behind the words. I suppose that the older you get the less time you have to ponder or reflect.*

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Ballycong

Sweeping through the reed and heather of Ballycong bog

Came the lonely breath of Rockall

Chasing the sun over the mountains

Tattered cuffs rolled back to reveal the position of the day

And home we made with a trailer full of history

On the brow of the hill was the distant light of home

Chimney offering last years sun-dried gold into the nightsky

The old fella smiled as the wind filled his lungs

For there's no better scent to warm a cool Atlantic breeze

Than the burning away of the layers of time

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Breaffy road surveillance

Far below the hedgerows

Far below the trees

The eyes they do be staring

Up into the breeze

Bulldog might be bailing

Cattle may break free

But the Breaffy road surveillance

Knows more than you or me

Fallen Angel

She longed to bare the knife-thrower's scars

Stepping out from her cushioned comfort

And into a world of broken glass

I chased and charmed but could not hold

More that a fist full of feathers

Erosion

There are ghosts who follow their tracks

On land fallen into the sea

They hover, aimlessly

Flat Kitchen Roof

You brought such joy to those dancing crows

And ended so many tennis ball throws

You leaked into Mums wicker fruit bowl

I feared it was me who created the hole

You brought me closer to the moon and stars
And your jagged gravel was the surface of Mars

When I am older in the tooth

I'll buy a house with a flat kitchen roof

Great Britain (1998)

Teletubbies number one. Spice girls meet Mandela.

Vanessa Feltz the next Oprah. New Labour, new cooking programme.

Diana crash conspiracy, scandal in the wind. Road rage murders.

More sleaze please. Gazza on the razza. Kayleigh Ward wasn't bored.

Liam trashes US hotel, again. Alcho-pops. 12 year old mothers. Quangos.

Rupert Murdoch. The Sun. Public opinion. Millennium dome.

Education, edukation, ejucation. Fox hunting saves the countryside.

Imploding implants. Soap stars saucy sex romp. Frozen pensioners. The lottery.

Louise even looks innocent. Cows eating sheep. Line dancing sweeps the nation.

Scottish Parliament. Welsh Assembly. More politicians.

Plastic

Your framed children left the others spinning in empty rooms

And more inflatable shamrocks aligned the walls of dingy southern flats

Yet no amount of T-shirts, stickers or fluffy green teddy bears

Could ever fill the holes their fathers left behind them
It's written on the overgrown landscapes

And on the face of every lonely ruin with weeds growing up through the roof

A far cry away from the craic your boys are having now

Grand young boyo's perched on theme pub milking stools

In their plastic gangs of Guiness smiles

Drinking like their Daddies, pissing their wages up the wall

Toasting to a homeland that they never even knew

Singing songs of fields in Galway with tears in their eyes

And cry they did in that very same place

When you had them picking instead of kicking

With the hated smell of silage breathing through the house

And the jokes about the simple farmers with no teeth

Your own brothers

"Daddy, why is everyone so dirty?" they would ask

And in the dreary wet bog they'd groan, "This is no holiday!"

The mouldy beds and the beetles in the shoes

Opened the door to many Spanish vacations

Yet, your longing grew on them like a fungus

And now these mistaken identities are craving a culture they couldn't survive in

A country you couldn't wait to escape from

You left your poor Mammy crying at the gate

And spent a lifetime pretending you were still there

But you weren't, and now your children think they're Irish?

*This is an ode to the men and boys of County Levenshulme circa 1993- 1999*

Untitled

At first the doors wouldn't close

And when the traffic stopped I could hear the buildings groan

People fell out of churches like coins being shaken from a Child's moneybox

And birds filled the skies like swirling tornadoes

The T.V. weather girl was shouting at the top of her voice

But no one was listening

The ground beneath our feet was screaming

Until it released its burden, then silence

Later, I saw the blue glow of our earth revolving into the distance

And I felt its pulling from the depths of my soul

I could say I spent my time on the worthy

The ones who left me spinning in awe

I have danced beneath the northern lights

And ran until the oceans of the world filled my shoes

The wonder of it all

Where the Wild Things Are

Poetry

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